Beginning
by zosimos
Summary: Supernatural/Fullmetal Alchemist fusion universe. Roy is contemplative of his relationship with Ed. Roy/adult!Ed


#03 – Beginning

Roy Mustang sighed deeply, sitting on the edge of the ratty motel room bed and running a hand through his hair. It was stuck in all directions, he would need a comb to tame his bed-head but that was the last thing on his mind at present. He was more concerned with the night before, and the dangers it had brought.

The other occupant of the bed shifted and sighed, but did not rise. Roy glanced back, to see only a tanned, muscular shoulder and the spill of dark gold hair, a little long at the base of the skull but still cut short. Roy smiled to himself, he still remembered when Ed wore it long; when he was still a surly teenager set on defying authority in any way he knew how. They were acquainted then, of course – Roy himself not that far out of those years, just as surly and far more bitter. There had been a spark of something between them even then … and maybe that was why he ran.

But that spark, and his life as a hunter, was over a decade old. He had settled here, with a false name and a false life and, apparently, a false sense of security. That life he had run so far from had tracked him down and dragged him kicking and screaming back into the darkness. What had that world ever given him but pain and misery?

(Ed.)

He was not cut out for this shit. Roy was naked, and still sticky with fluids that they had been too worn out to clean up the night before. He rubbed his hand over his jaw and sighed, the exhaustion set deep in his bones. He had left this world because hunters did not live very long lives – they lived short, violent and lonely ones. The people you met in the business were very broken indeed; chock full of enough issues to fill a magazine rack.

While you could take the hunter out of the hunt, it meant absolutely nothing if the hunt came to him. Roy's skills had atrophied but they were not completely gone, and he could not deny the thrill that tingled up his spine when his well-timed head shot had brought the skinwalker down. He was a sick individual, Roy knew that all too well; it was why he had walked away from this world and taken a nondescript job in a nondescript town and settled on blending in. Put a gun in his hands, and he was a killer.

But Ed -

He remembered Hohenheim's brats; two blond boys with wide, unnatural golden eyes and an intense gaze that bothered him even then. Ed was always the louder of the two, the brash one, the arrogant one. At thirteen he had held his shotgun like a badge of honor, and sulked with all the subtlety of a teenager when left behind to babysit his little brother, instead of accompanying the two elder hunters on their mission. When Roy had parted ways with the Elrics over a decade ago Ed was just starting to show the signs of the man he would grow into.

And that was the man who now slept in Roy's bed. Ed was jaded and cynical – he had a look in his eyes that was far older than his years entailed. He had been through some very rough times, he and his brother both. Maybe someday Roy would be privy to the details but if he brought it up Ed's eyes shadowed with the look of a man possessed. Time was never kind to those in their line of work.

Roy leaned back on his hand, palm flat on the mattress, and looked at Ed. There were the scars that he could see, faint silver lines visible on his skin from close calls never spoken of again; the faint impression of a hand print across his shoulder that Roy had never gotten a satisfactory explanation for, and of course the warding tattoo. Then there were the scars that he simply could not see, but were there nonetheless.

The absence of his brother, for instance.

Seeing Ed again – seeing Ed alone, in a bar, without Al on his wing, was not something Roy had ever expected. The two of them used to be so close, they used to function as a perfect unit. They were drilled as a team, and Ed was obsessed with protecting his baby brother from everything. Something had happened to split the brothers, but what could drive such a schism between them? And dare he even ask?

He reached over Ed, planning to brush the bangs from his eyes, maybe to nudge him awake with a kiss – but Roy should have known better. The moment Ed's hand shot out and grabbed his wrist, yanking him forward and off-balance Roy realized exactly how little he really knew the man he had invited into his bed. The knife was at his throat, the blade pressed just under his jaw, before Ed's lethal golden eyes even snapped open.

Ed did not even seem to recognize Roy immediately. There was a tense moment where Roy simply held his breath, afraid that the bobbing motion of his throat when he swallowed was all that separated him from a quick and messy death, before Ed's eyes cleared and he let up on the blade. Ed released Roy's wrist in the same movement.

Roy sat back and rubbed his throat, smearing the drop of blood that had leaked from the shallow cut.

"Don't do that." Ed's voice was raw, ragged like he had been screaming. No apology offered, but really, Roy should not be surprised. Ed slid the knife back under his pillow and watched Roy. "You could get hurt," he offered after another moment of silence.

"No shit," Roy snapped back before he could contain himself.

Ed turned away, swinging his feet out from under the covers. Roy watched over his shoulder as Ed propped his elbows on his knees and interlocked his hands behind his head.

The silence hung between them, heavy and unyielding.

_(sitting in an empty room, trying to forget the past._  
_This was never meant to last. I wish it wasn't so.)_


End file.
